


Crawl Or Cot

by yashley



Category: Kajillionaire
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:13:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27375496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yashley/pseuds/yashley
Summary: (Precedes "Yes") Old Dolio takes her first step into something better and Melanie finally gets her official breast crawl. And.... pancakes?
Relationships: Old Dolio/Melanie (Kajillionaire)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 108





	Crawl Or Cot

There's something hypnotic in the rhythm and repetition of what's happening. Dolio swears she isn't idly rocking herself to it, but as she continues to feel the tender pulling of her hair, her shoulders have relaxed, and she feels completely soothed. Melanie's fingers weave together the long strands of sandy-blonde hair until they interlace and form a gilded braid. She reaches the end with a deft twirl and retrieves a thin, plastic hair tie from between her teeth, tying it off with a proud, unnoticed flourish. 

"I have to say, I love this." 

Without waiting for a response, her hands begin sectioning off another length of Dolio's hair, and she restarts the process, subtly watching the edge of Dolio's face.

_Still. Yet alive with presence._ Basking in such a fundamental human act as social grooming; A desiccated flower engorging at the first touch of water.

Melanie had insisted, when she playfully swatted Dolio to her knees. "Two braids. Just two." And now she's silently working on her third, all the while lingering whenever she can, trying to coax a subconscious reaction each time she softly strokes her finger against Dolio's neck.

A quietness marinates the room, and Melanie smiles faintly to herself realizing that Dolio is blissfully calm right now. Something about the gentleness, and the concentration, she feels herself lulling Dolio into a satisfied daze, and it makes her fingers excitedly twitch every other loop.

_Time to get you to agree to something._

"It was on the list, wasn't it?"

Dolio's breath startles out of her, and she blinks several times; processing. Melanie tuts her quickly and motions forward an incomplete braid, insisting Dolio to remain still. She smiles again, at how oblivious Dolio is, and how it makes her heart swell.

"Crawling up my abdomen. Y'know you just kinda.. crawled on the ground." 

"It's already over." Dolio's voice inflects a slight, unintentional strain of disappointment, and she clears her throat. There’s a subtle rash setting in her cheeks; a flare of blushing annoyance as she tries to peel herself out of the defenseless paradise she was just in, while trying to actively ignore how deep she had gone.

"Th-The list is over."

"Eh, we'll say that after an _actual_ breast crawl."

Dolio shakes her head, exhaling sharply through her nose, the way she did when her mind was turning. "Technically, you only got paid five-hundred and twenty-five dollars, so that removes the demand for two-thirds of the services."

It makes Melanie smile, in the uncontrollable, beaming-way that makes her instinctively turn her face to keep from grinning.

"So y-you already.. did too much."

"So you owe me." She grins. With a small coil of hair at the end of her finger, Melanie finishes her third braid, and fondly brings the others in her hand to admire her work; the braids... and the flush on Dolio's cheeks.

The softness in Melanie's voice cuts to Dolio with complete ease, and she shuts her eyes tightly, feeling a heat tickle her face like a sharp, stinging kiss. It brings her back to the memory of those first pricks of attraction that had torn a barren trail through her chest, leaving her breathless and raw.

"You can say you don't want to." Melanie’s fingertips find their way to the back of Dolio’s neck, her nails faintly brushing against the scattered patch of goosebumps. _Are you trying to rile me up?_

"I wouldn't believe that any more than you would.”

Melanie presses her lips firmly together into a curved line, how Dolio can sound so guarded and yet so vulnerable. The blurring memories of how standoffish she used to be, how resistant to even the slightest attention. Melanie tilts her head, regarding Dolio. The tip of her ear peering out from the cascading streams of her hair, the back of her head slightly fidgeting impatiently waiting for Melanie's next words. How she isn’t flinching away from Melanie’s touch. How that makes Melanie want to touch her more. 

"Then you _want_ to." Melanie sees Dolio's shoulders tense slightly. _She's contemplating._ Melanie feigns resuming work on that strand of unraveled hair. "What, it's too much to hear you say it?" _God, did she love teasing Dolio._ The way her cheeks would turn a subtle, sweet pink, and her penetrating eyes would dart around only to faithfully blink back for the next social cue.

Dolio huffs as quietly to herself as she can manage, swallowing hard and awkward, and trying to wet her lips in preparation for words she hasn't thought of yet. It was something her parents incessantly reminded her of; that was never going to be her strong suit. No matter the deftness in retrieving items or dollars out of reach with her hands, when it came to skillfully speaking to lift a job, it never worked for her. _You'll never be loved for your words, Old Dolio._

With Melanie, that inferiority had splintered strangely to the point Dolio didn't know what to make of her stumbling tongue now. The shame in her parents' eyes, puncturing her critically, _we'd get more if you were gifted speaker like me,_ yet the shame now, is different. Shallow. Deeply eclipsed by that fluttering pocket of desire.

"I... do." It comes out more melancholic than intended, and Dolio lowers her head, staring down at her hands resting against each other in her lap. The skin-on-skin, the way she can faintly drag one hand across the other and feel what it's like to touch skin while feeling what it's like to be touched by skin. That was all she knew. The extent of all of her contact. Until Melanie.

"We can do it here on the couch."

Sharp icicles erupt down Dolio's back and she shifts forward, away-- Until Melanie places her palm against Dolio's neck.

"Or in the room. No lights. Just blackness." The smooth-down, the assist. "Or we really don't have to." Melanie begins unravelling the braids, very carefully combing her fingers through Dolio's hair, in some bizarre, chaste fashion. It invokes déjà vu. Melanie can still hear the echoes of Dolio's heavy breathing from that day. Dolio still feels her heart beating in her throat.

"Th-The room." Dolio can't manage not to stammer. It makes Melanie bite her lip. "I do... Want to."

"We can do it later." Melanie grins at the exasperated huff Dolio emits and with a rugged tousle, shatters the uniformity of the braids back into a tumultuous sea of sandy-blonde hair. She can't resist how giddy she feels. "It's about time."

* * *

Dolio quietly shuts the bedroom door behind her, and tensely watches as Melanie reaches on tiptoes over to switch off her lamp. "Here," She whispers, after the thick darkness swallows the room and the two of them in it. "Give me your hand."

Instinctively, Dolio's hand flinches backwards and a stammering of words spills out of her mouth. None comprehensible. A flush of heat seeps from Dolio's cheeks and she can feel herself blushing now. Somehow knowing exactly... that Melanie is smiling at her.

"For the bed. To lead you to it."

There's a rush of awkwardness that pricks frustratedly in Dolio's head; how stupid she must be, how stupid all of this is. Her mind won't stop flipping back to the analytical mindset she hid behind without ever having to worry about anyone looking to find her. Desperately trying to make fiscal sense out of an interaction born solely from desire. But she can’t. Her mind won’t do that to this.

After a few seconds, a closeness is standing patiently in front of her, and Dolio feels a hand unfold its fingers against her palm, slowly enveloping themselves together. A blurry memory formed in her mind: someone taking her by the wrist, dragging her towards the orange glow of a stovetop, and forcing her close to the heat. Dolio flinches back from the blossoming warmth. But the hand gently follows after.

"You're okay." The darkness of the room is becoming familiar now, and Dolio begins to see the faint outline of Melanie as she carefully moves towards her. "I got you."

The silence hemorrhages faintly with the sound of the mattress creaking, bedsheets shuffling, and bated breath, but once she’s on her knees between Melanie's legs, stiffly bending down to rest her head against Melanie's torso, all Dolio can feel is the fluttering warmth against her cheek, and Melanie's pulse beating softly in her ear.

It reminds Dolio of a dripping leak. The constant, steady patter. She can see the drops of rain blipping frantically together on the windowpane in her mind, yet all she can feel is warmth.

The heartbeat. The heat. The hardness of another human being's body as it lay beneath her. Dolio’s train of thought dissipates as the imaginary beads of water shatter apart and race down her imagination for the continuous _tap! tap! tap!_

Hesitantly, Dolio shifts apart from Melanie and a reassuring hand suddenly brushes up her arm. "Too much?" Without a word, Dolio buries her face back against Melanie's stomach, sighing slightly at the blanket of warmth that welcomes her back.

_Yes, too much._

It's all too much. Touching her. Being touched by her. Feeling how soft Melanie is with her own lips, even unintentionally as she lay there. Even feeling the blankets beneath them is too much. _They're so soft. They're not a sleeping bag._ It's all a distraction. Or is she stalling? _The breast crawl. I have to crawl. Then it'll be over... But then.. it'll be over._

Dolio feels the band of Melanie's bra stiffly touch the top of her head, and suddenly all she can wonder is if the skin underneath is the warmest. It has to be. She thinks that's what she had read. Somewhere. How it isn't called _the bra crawl_ , and yet she can feel her cheeks heat up once more and she presses her face harder against Melanie's stomach. The awkward humiliation combates the aching hunger, and there is a mewling desperation as she feels Melanie slowly trace her fingertips against her shoulders.

_How long would it be,_ Dolio pauses. How long could they lay together in the dark before they separate and the moment turns into a fading memory. It brings a stifled whine in the back of Dolio's throat, and she realizes now that she had been shifting her entire body back and forth between Melanie.

Almost rhythmically, the motion brings Dolio to the center of Melanie's chest, but something inside her warns her that if she lowers her face, the warmth would only burn her. _It’s too much_. But she can’t stop. Dolio leans forward and rests her forehead between Melanie's breasts, oblivious to their now bareness, only feeling the lulling melody Melanie had been humming without her realizing. 

_It's that song. The piano..._

With what seems like all of the air in her body, Dolio exhales steadily as she finally places her face against Melanie's chest. She hears Melanie's heartbeat, and can't tell if it had been thrumming like this before.

"Am I hurting you?" Dolio whispers, and Melanie tenses slightly, before tentatively resuming tracing a finger against Dolio's shoulder.

"You're not hurting me."

Her voice almost seems... strained to Dolio, and the doubt scratches at her. Uncertain, Dolio begins to raise her head, "Are you sur -"

Melanie gently takes the back of Dolio's head in her hand, and softly hushes her, guiding her back. "I'm sure."

"I'm just... I'm heavier than.. a baby." A short laugh exhales from Melanie, and Dolio blushes again. There's a wave of comfort, and Dolio situates herself a little more comfortably against Melanie. 

It's... _nice_. To be this close. Yet Dolio feels herself forgetting how to swallow, and more importantly, how to breathe, thinking about how close she is to Melanie. If anyone saw them, if her parents... the slickness in her twitching throat swallows rough and dry at the thought of it. Her parents. Seeing her like this. The thought is knives to her, in her eyes, her throat, and her gut. Somehow even her fingertips feel... wrong, as they strain not to relax against Melanie's skin. 

_It's wrong, somehow, it must be wrong. Something is wrong. Why am I doing this?_ Dolio hasn't taken a breath in several seconds, and the tears in her eyes bring about into further welling, and a faceless shame panics into her. She knows how they would look at her. _Did they ever look at her any other way?_

_I'm sorry._

She had managed, as the cloying fit of sobs crept up the back of her throat and her parents squinted at her, her father: confused, her mother: contemptuous.

_You're doing it wrong. It's our fault that you're doing it wrong? We did you a favor and it's our fault that you're doing it wrong?_

It's all too easy to feel that. It's all too..

Suddenly, Dolio feels Melanie's attention is on her. There's another awkward stiffening of her thoughts, awkwardly trying to place herself in the present. In the warmth. She feels Melanie's lips even when they don't touch her, and she sees her dark eyes watching softly even through the shadows. Not criticizing her. Not estimating her financial value. Not even exactly _watching_ her. Eyes that didn't constrict suspiciously. Like her mother's; clawing and strangling. Thinking of Melanie's eyes on her, Dolio feels... different.

"Do you think.. It's too late?"

It's the most quiet Melanie has ever heard her be, and a pang knocks against her at how vulnerable Dolio sounds. "For what?"

"To crawl. If you don't.. you're just-"

"It's never too late." Melanie speaks with an undertone of seriousness, even through the welling softness. And her hand is back on Dolio's face, turning towards her. Melanie can see the faintest shimmer of Dolio's eyes even in the dark, two tearful stars flickering desperately at her. 

"But what if-" The cracking in Dolio's voice immediately is too much for her to bear, and Melanie leans them together and kisses her. Her hand instinctively starts to caress Dolio's cheek, and a sigh stifles between their lips.

She wants to do it again. And again. And kiss Dolio until her chest heaves for air and her mouth aches from the franticness. The stirring hunger is getting to her, feeling Dolio move once more between her legs, but Melanie forces herself to return Dolio back to lay on her chest, placing a gentle palm against her head, and Melanie resumes her humming. To soothe Dolio or herself, in that moment, she isn't sure.

All Dolio can feel is the pounding in Melanie's chest, and the stinging on her lips. "Your heart." Dolio says, after a long silence. "It's beating so hard."

"You're not hurting me." Melanie says almost on reflex, slightly annoyed with herself and her heartbeat giving herself away.

"It feels like mine." Whether Melanie can tell Dolio's heartbeat is the same, pounding against her side, or if, the thought brushes over her, that their heartbeats have started mirroring in rhythm, Melanie's thoughts are still hitching on the kiss. "It's like ... kangaroo care." Dolio continues, "A skin-to-skin.." 

"Skin-to- _shirt_." murmurs Melanie.

"They do it for sick babies... or to keep them from getting sick." Dolio takes in a heavy breath, and releasing it slowly, focuses on how... _nice_ Melanie smells. The fragrance of her, blending in the warmth. _Intoxicating._

The memory of it all; the sweet coconut spray, and the waxy, shimmering texture of Melanie's lips, that clean smell from the cosmetics she used, the natural scent of her skin; it's all just a braided fragrance that makes Dolio ache when she smells anything else. It gives a gentle stinging in Dolio's eyes at the thought of it all, and a blush of contentment warms her face over how lost in thought she is over her... For her smell alone.

"I think it's working." 

Her sharp, floral scent laces every inhale, and there's goosebumps down Dolio's arm underneath Melanie's hand. "Me too." 

Dolio is... comfortable. She can't remember the last time she had ever been so comfortable, and she thinks to mutter something about that fact, yet the words tangle her tongue and all that can come out is:

"It's better than the floor."

She feels Melanie's chest tense with an amused exhale, and Dolio's cheeks flush once more knowing Melanie is smiling again.

"You sure? You still seem pretty tense." It's a tease and she figures Dolio is too nervous right now to really understand that, or maybe the tease is laced in something else, something she isn't acknowledging, that maybe it's more of a bait. For what... Melanie chooses to ignore.

"I once tried to get a massage.." Dolio says somewhat absently, and the intrigue in Melanie's voice suddenly makes her feel more vulnerable than just laying her face on Melanie's chest. "It didn't work." Dolio thinks on the moment and the embarrassment adds to her rigidity. Until Melanie's hands travel up her arms and ever so slightly caresses her over her shirt.

"Like this?"

"No, it was..." Dolio shifts slightly, "It was..." Melanie tries to soothe her again as Dolio stiffens slightly apart from her. But it's only for a few seconds until the misplaced, awkward gruffness pushes Dolio against the side of the bed, between the wall and Melanie. it's not a complete withdraw, Melanie notes, Three steps forward two steps back.

"That's probably long enough." Dolio forces herself to say, and can't hide the distance straining her voice, and Melanie realizes with a dull ache that Dolio has switched herself to her operating mode. "It's good for.... They probably don't do it much longer than that."

"Okay." is all Melanie says, and starts to move herself back towards the makeshift bed on the floor. Until Dolio reaches for her in the dark, her blind hand eagerly wrapping around Melanie's bare torso with startled innocence. It's firm. Like the night Melanie reached over to help drape a blanket over Dolio and the blonde clutched her arm, but not to shove away. As if a strong part of her more so... wanting to pull Melanie down on her. 

Like that night, Melanie doesn't move. The memory of it makes her nearly flinch. She tries to will her eyes to see Dolio's face through blackness, and for an instant she swears she can, the memory of her striking eyes glistening at her. _Fuck, does she want to kiss her again._

"H-However, with the kangaroo care," Dolio audibly swallows, and there's a slight crack in her voice. "They also just... Sleeping beside another is..." Melanie rolls her eyes fondly to herself, smiling once more. Something wistful and waiting; over a low heat and yet burning with Dolio's arm is still firmly holding her.

"You just... sleep next to each other. I-It.. might help, too." 

"In this small bed?" Melanie tries not to think about the subconscious way Dolio's thumb is faintly stroking against her, over the indentation left from her bra.

"Usually, it's just next to... but, I guess to fit..."

"We have to be closer." Melanie almost purrs, unintentionally, and Dolio's arm still draws her nearer, already positioning herself to bury her face against Melanie's neck, her arms wrapping tightly around her, her thigh falling right between Melanie's legs. _It's too much._

Melanie exhales stiffly, and instantly returns the embrace, biting her lip at the feeling of Dolio's hot exhales beating against her skin, and glad that no one could see it.

She wraps her arms around her, closer than she needs to to "fit" together in this bed, and the outline of Melanie's bra doesn't meet her shirt. "When.. did you take off your..?"

"A bit ago." Melanie says, powerfully nonchalant. "When did you notice?"

Dolio bites her lip slightly, "A bit ago."

"Does it bother you?"

All Dolio does is shake her head against Melanie, the blonde nestling her face back against her, taking another silent inhale of the smell of her hair, and a strange adrenaline jolts inside her, slowing her resolve.

"How does it feel? To receive..?"

"You'll have to find out." Perhaps the comfort is making Melanie bold, as well. "You're giving me a breast crawl next, right?" She says it even though she knows what would happen, and she smiles to herself at the feeling of stark hesitation that freezes Dolio. It's endearing. And adorable. And so fucking attractive.

"You did say I did too much." She feels the smallest smile curve of Dolio's lips against her neck; it's another burst of overwhelming warmth. 

"I don't think... it's worth that much from me." Dolio whispers, and Melanie tries her best to silence her scoff. "No one wants... any of that from me."

It's aching and it's sad, and Melanie wants nothing more than to take Dolio's face in her hands and kiss her. And again. And let her lips and her hands show Dolio just how much Melanie wants anything from her. But right now, that wouldn't get Dolio to call her “baby”.

"You'll have to convince me." Melanie shrugs, and it nearly coaxes a pitiful whine from Dolio. "Try it out first."

"Try...?"

"Hon." She whispers in Dolio's ear, and feels the uncontrolled huff in response. Melanie smiles. "My sweetheart. My sweet baby."

It sears into Dolio's face, as intensely as it did the first time she heard it, the familiarly doing nothing to protect her. Dolio lets out a heavy sigh, and swallows. It won't work, she thinks. It's not the same. With Melanie's sparkling eyes, and warm smiling face, she's sunshine incarnate and everything captivating and sweet. Her hold on Melanie as she lay there doesn't loosen, and she tries to make herself as still as possible, the pricking conflict screaming at her for how worthless she is compared to this woman, and _what is she doing right now?_

"I couldn't make anyone feel that way." Dolio concedes from the quiet, and her body starts to shift in part, only for Melanie's arms to tighten around her.

"Just say it."

The tip of Dolio's tongue accidentally flicks out against Melanie's neck as she tries to mouth the words, and her confidence stumbles, slowly folding herself a little further against Melanie. As if trying to hide from Melanie by choosing her to hide behind. Melanie tries to stifle her smile. "It wouldn't... It wouldn't work." Dolio feels Melanie shake her head in a silent, unyielding response.

" _Please._ "

"H-Hon..." Dolio feels the absence in her own voice and she clears her throat. The gears are turning, and Melanie can almost hear them. A long, contemplative pause. And Dolio thinks about all the ways it could mean. To acknowledge the boarded-up room and enter it and see all of the feelings that had been left unattended, bubbling inside of her. Until it seeps through the walls. And grows mold. The conflict ebbing inside her, flowing the next; all of those verbal expressions of this _feeling_ , of all of them, now just flourishing spores slipping out with each stammered breath, in an uncontrolled outpour of something pure, and in surrendering desperation.

_I say this because I love you, and because I want you to feel loved._

"Oh.. _Hon_." Melanie's eyes flutter shut, and suddenly she can feel the heartbeats pressed together, both pounding. "My sweetheart." Dolio is quiet, and her voice slightly cracked, and there's a burdening vulnerability warping the words that leaves Melanie aching. The words are like a ribbon of silk slipping from Dolio’s mouth, and they sear through Melanie, melting her. "My sweet.. _baby_."

The word enunciates slowly against Melanie's skin, and she tells herself it wasn't a kiss. Until there's another. And another. And right before Melanie's body reacts completely, they stop.

"I'd make you pancakes without a list." There's something trancelike in the way Dolio says it, and Melanie bites her lip, her fingers lightly pressing through Dolio's hair, softly stroking her head. It's the only thing she can think to do to keep her from losing her mind over wanting her.

"You gotta finish the breast crawl first."

Melanie's fingers faintly pinch at the hem of Dolio's shirt, and she can tell she's spooked Dolio back into awkward, stammering awareness, yet again... it's attractive.

"Y-You don't want--" A wave of heat scrapes up Dolio's skin underneath the only thing keeping them apart, but her mouth trembles in its desperation. This isn't a conversation Dolio wants to maneuver out of. And the knowledge of that brings her close to shivering.

"It's not completely _authentic_ otherwise, is it?" Melanie ventures, and the second Dolio pauses, processing, Melanie knows she has her.

The bedsheet feels resistant and disapproving as Dolio unfolds herself from Melanie and slowly moves away, and her heartbeat, with its deafening pounding reaching up her throat, doesn't even feel a part of her anymore. Dolio feels Melanie's body as she lays there, completely still, splayed out and tentatively waiting.

Dolio finds herself pausing, her arms stiffly at the ready to slip off her shirt, the darkness with its shallow protection from sight. In a single, swallowed motion, with phantom scrutinizing eyes in the back of her mind, Dolio forces herself to slip off her armor and shut out their glares.

The shirt crumples and brushes past Melanie's leg to fold and fall down to the floor of her bedroom, and she absentmindedly wet her lips. _Her clothes on my floor. Her in my bed._ _If only the lights were on._

Yet there Dolio stays, leaning back on her knees, Melanie's leg beneath her, and she feels everything at once. The way her long hair has fallen over her bare chest. The way the body heat that had been soaking in her skin is seeping out and leaving her uncomfortably cold. And layers of things begin overlapping and contradicting, and ignoring and reiterating, until she feels Melanie shift towards her, reaching for her arm with a familiar stroke.

"I can’t see you." 

The tender reassurance lures Dolio back. "You can't?"

Melanie ponders that for a moment, letting the memory of the sandy-blonde hair, and the ice-blue eyes, and the chaste smile and trembling lips illuminate in the darkness, and an aching hunger swells inside her. "No." She lies.

There comes the stalling, Dolio's fingers blindly entwine, twitching in and out of envelopment as her bottom lip faintly quavers in the darkness. She knows all she has to do is mutter anything about _help,_ and a knowing hand will effortlessly find its way to her. To touch, or hold, or guide. Dolio feels a strange pang of confusion thrum in her forehead, that she doesn't know what is about to happen. The video she had watched in that class, the small baby squirming with shut eyes up its mother chest. _How did it know?_

_"Did I crawl up or... was I put on a cot?"_

_Cot._

_Cot._

_Cot._

Melanie's whisper cuts through the pounding in Dolio's head. "My sweet baby." 

Almost responsively, Dolio leans forward, her hands pressing down into the mattress and she listens to the subtle sound of crinkling fabrics. She closes her eyes, even though she already can't see, and still she can sense where Melanie's waist is beneath her, the warmth radiating its presence and embracing her back. The tip of her nose is the first to touch against Melanie's abdomen, and Dolio feels her pulse steadily beat back against her skin. Her cheek lowers and presses cautiously down, her arms slowly sliding upwards around Melanie, and her back arches in the fluidity of the crawl. 

She can feel the delicate hairs on Melanie’s stomach lightly brush against her face, varying from a firm rest to a gentle drifting, and there's a sudden flash of sunlight behind Dolio's eyes.

"In what sense?" echoes a voice from Dolio's memory. " _In what sense are they your parents?_ "

The softness, the heat, the faint layer of sweat and anticipation. Dolio shifts between Melanie's thighs, inching up, feeling a slight tension in Melanie's abdomen as she adjusts her weight. There's something ritualistic in the deliberate patience of Dolio's movements, and Melanie's heartbeat pounds as she tries to remain as still as possible; the flash of that soft orange glow around them as Dolio had patiently tended to Melanie's nails. That's what it felt like. Being at the complete mercy of Dolio's considerate actions. No movement is wasted, every stroke counts, every ounce of energy spent in complete respect. And it makes Melanie desperate for the touch.

And it's nearly too much. Feeling Dolio bare against her, how soft. It's only then Melanie notices the faint layer of sweat on her own chest. The slight moisture is nearly startling, the slight glide of skin-to-skin, it makes her ache. She can feel Dolio's nipples against her and actively ignores that they're hard. _This isn't that._

The darkness, the closeness. All Melanie can think about is the gas station bathroom. She could feel the warmth of Dolio's frantic words huffing all around her, closer to her lips than either cared to realize. The blackness made it possible to inch closer and closer and it all swells in Melanie's chest at feeling Dolio laying against her now. How desperately she had wanted to kiss Dolio in that moment. How it echoes now.

A calm silence stretches and wraps around them as Dolio settles, and the scalding sensation Dolio first felt when she rested her bare chest against Melanie's slowly becomes a soothing pressure. It lulls her; her eyes fluttering from open to close. Even with the dark of the room, she can't seem to give her body over to sleep. Not right now. Not yet, when only closing her eyes will rip her away from this in an instant to her waking. Melanie's heartbeat is steady against her, and there isn't a lungful of air that isn't laced with her fragrance. 

The sleep builds and she can feel her hands clutching the plastic bin, trying to scoop it up as the sleep builds and falls, trying to keep herself awake. _Not yet. Not yet._

_Overwhelming...._

But not so... _completely_. Dolio feels a yawn stiffen her jaw, and she nestles herself a bit more comfortably against Melanie's neck, whose body seems to instinctively loosen to her. They're holding each other, and Melanie can feel Dolio's hair messily strewn across her chest and she takes a relishing inhale.

"Was it better with a shirt?" 

"No." is all the blonde says, and Melanie smiles faintly at what the distance in Dolio's voice really is.

_She's so tired._

Sleep drapes over her in an instant, and Dolio doesn't even shift in response as Melanie manages to pinch the blanket up and over the two of them. Melanie sighs to herself, at the building warmth between them, at the near inaudible sound of Dolio's breathing, at Dolio's _soft_ skin resting calmly against her, and carefully, silently, Melanie leans her lips against Dolio's forehead.

* * *

It's the foam that shivers and bursts at the slightest movement. It'd be worth it, to simply be undone - all by the faintest breeze... of existing near Her. _Overwhelming._

The trembling froth forms together and weeps down the wall in her mind. Dolio is standing there, watching it fall. There's something different about it. About this familiar stress-induced dream of oversleeping somehow and being the only one at home to start scooping away the bubbles. _Responsibility. Failure. ... But You have no Home._

This time, Dolio is standing there, and the foam is grey, and the wall is grey, and Dolio tilts her head curiously at it, finally realizing that in all her dreams it was always grey.

She looks to her right and there's someone there. She blinks and doesn't recognize them. Until slowly she sees the smile carve its light through the blackness, and a warmth fills her chest and she tastes _yellow_ thickening on her tongue.

"It's you." Dolio whispers. Her voice is hoarse, and all air escapes her, but not like the usual gasping throes that wake her. The air escapes her at the sight of the smile and ball of warmth as it pulsates beneath her ribs, a pressured swelling that isn't suffocating, and then it returns, filling her lungs with a feeling of peace. It's euphoric. Dolio looks down to her hand and sees it entwined with the figure's, and her heartbeat thrums faintly in time with the bursting of bubbles down the wall.

"It's beautiful." The smile says, with its tone smooth and intoxicating, and Dolio tears her eyes away from it, looking back to the oozing grey.

"It's a wall."

A subtle heat taps against their pressed palms, and Dolio squints a little, trying to catch the foam for faults. There isn't a drop of pink amidst the bubbles, but she can see them pop, the moisture glistening like a wall of welling eyes all fixated vacantly towards Dolio. The figure gently squeezes Dolio's hand.

"It's the sky."

Dolio watches in front of them as the firmness of the phantom plaster wall softens and floats backwards against itself, disappearing; the heaps of grey foam lift and begin drifting on an invisible breeze casting them up towards a horizon, and a pink-kissed dawn bleeds up into the forming clouds. Dolio feels a warmth seep into her cheeks and she squeezes the hand back, a wetness trickling down her face and she feels herself smiling. In this place, for the first time. _Smiling._

* * *

Almost instinctively, Dolio's eyes open. Without a single jerk, or stammering breath, Dolio blinks through the darkness and sees Melanie's jaw, her ear, and her closed eye. Plainly, in the swelling pale morning light. The blanket that had been pulled over them, their legs and arms entwined together without an awkward joint, simply as if the two of them always fit. All of the scents come flooding into Dolio's mind and she inhales slowly for the fluctuating coconut faintly emanating from Melanie's hair.

She can't believe it. All of the sensations, her skin pressed against someone else's, against... hers. To wake up, the restfulness almost makes her delirious. Or maybe that's the quiet sound of Melanie's breathing. Or feeling where sleep had left her hands, loosely pawing Melanie's bare shoulders, or with each breath that their chests part from only to reunite. 

A tear slips from her and races to her cheekbone, and she feels it as it falls. The stinging in her eyes, she feels the restfulness and the warmth, and a sense of intense belonging that feels like a word she would only ever hear in passing conversation of strangers or on heart-shaped cards strewn down a convenience store aisle. In that sickly, sad moment, she regrets herself.

Regrets all of the years and all of the life that was spent on the floor. On the cot. That her hands feel numb from all the touch they're surely too defective to comprehend and now, shame and fear fill her eyes and one by one, beads follow the tracks of the first tear. _Do I feel it all? Am I doing it right?_ Her hands feel rough against Melanie's soft skin, and a flush of embarrassment takes her. _I shouldn't be--_

A faint hush leaves Melanie's lips, and Dolio freezes.

"My sweetheart." Suddenly, Dolio feels where Melanie's hands are, one on her lower back, the other in the middle of her shoulders. She realizes how held she is, and tries to pretend she's asleep and not blushing. Melanie's hand travel up Dolio's body, and she cups the blonde's face to tilt towards hers, caressing her softly. "It's okay. Be here." Melanie kisses her forehead softly, and lingers. "Be here with me."

"Maybe I shouldn't."

"You should." The sound of Melanie's voice dripping with sleepiness does something aching to Dolio. "You definitely should."

"What if... they were right."

Dolio blinks through the welling tears, and the white noise from the silence of the room builds into an orchestra of muttering critiques, jabbing her roughly, until the soothing pressure of Melanie's fingers gently work their way up the back of Dolio's head.

Melanie shakes her head, confident. " _This_ is right."

And that's it.

Dolio's eyes roll shut and she inhales deeply. Overtop of them sprawls an engulfing peace and Dolio presses herself against Melanie, realizing that the voices are quiet. Clouds float distantly behind her eyes, and where the doubt pained her is now a vacuum. A euphoric freedom blooms from all the space she feels and how... _warm_ and _bright_ the space is.

"H-Hey..." Dolio whispers, and she hears the purring _Mm-m?_ in response. "Should I get up now?"

"Not yet."

Melanie starts to hum, a different lullaby now, as she slowly caresses her hand down Dolio's head. "You've spent enough time on a cot."

Dolio takes another heavy inhale, closes her eyes, and presses her lips to Melanie's neck. Knowing that the two people who got into the bed won't be the two people getting out.

She smiles.

* * *

**Epilogue:**

Dolio's face is a mask of splotchy pink after she realizes how she's going to get out of this bed, and the sweetness tightening Melanie's cheek from her smile doesn't help. Without even a word, Melanie shakes her head softly. "Okay." She murmurs, and reaches to pull a corner of the blanket up over her face. "You're good, go ahead."

The sudden childishness of it only makes Dolio blush harder, and she awkwardly, (albeit resistantly), lifts herself away from Melanie. Her thigh accidentally pushes Melanie's legs further apart, and Dolio gruffly manages an apology as she stumbles out of the bed, quickly fishing her shirt up over her head and down her body. Dolio clears her throat, and glances back towards Melanie; the dark, smiling eyes squinting slightly at Dolio from under the blanket.

"You gonna make me pancakes?" Melanie teases, and insists she was teasing even as Dolio methodically places all of the memorized ingredients out on the counter. Melanie is beaming silently to herself, watching Dolio retrieve a pan, even the butter spray from the far-left cabinet; how she just _knows_ where everything is. Melanie bites her lip. _Dolio when she's uncomfortable looks so much like Dolio when she's comfortable._

Dolio sprays the pan, exactly the way Melanie did (minusing the extra bit of spatter that made its way towards the stovetop clock), measuring deftly without wasting even a teaspoon of batter, and Melanie watches as her forearm flexes tirelessly as she stirs the mixture into an identical consistency. Even remembering to add the extra teaspoon of vanilla extract and cinnamon. _When did she even notice I did that?_

Fortunately, Melanie's pride is salvaged by Dolio's nerves breaking apart a raw pancake in an attempt to flip. _Too rough._ It makes Melanie smile tightly and quickly straighten it away. Dolio feels a sting of confusion, and looks to Melanie for only a second before shaking her head at herself, she quickly disposes of the torn, goopy clump of pancake.

"It's okay." Melanie shrugs, her eyes never leaving Dolio, something about the way Dolio's brow furrows and her mouth so very small in her focus. She tries her best for her smile not to be caught in peripheral. "It's just the first pancake."

Dolio stands over the second pancake with a hunched intensity that brings the smile back completely on Melanie. The ice-blue eyes fixate harshly on it, and occasionally she squints down at the edges of her pancake slowly browning, trying to gauge how much longer as some holes in the center of it start to form. With a skilled flip this time, the second pancake survives and the smallest smile twitches the corner of Dolio's mouth. She counts to thirty-seven in her head and scoops it out of the pan and gingerly places it on the plate in front of Melanie.

The hesitation raising Dolio's eyebrows expectantly at Melanie only makes her smile once more, and the blonde holds her breath as Melanie takes a bite, but a smile spreads across Dolio's face before the compliments leave her. There's a searing warmth in this, she's surprised, and pleasantly confused. Melanie nods her praises, and offers the rest to Dolio, who shakes her head and continues onto her third pancake.

_"This one will be perfect._ "

Her determination makes the both of them smile, and her growing pride; when she tries to glance to Melanie taking another impressed bite of what _she_ had made for _her:_ the sweetest Dolio's ever felt.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a mess and I'm sorry about it!


End file.
